For much of the season, the Mets have been struggling to find bright spots on this team as they currently sit with a 33-49 record after starting off the season with a 12-2 record.
One of those bright spots seemed to be the emergence of Robert Gsellman as a reliable reliever in the Mets bullpen, so much so that many point to him being the team’s closer in 2019 with Jeurys Familia likely to be dealt at the MLB Trade Deadline and the team not likely to sign a top-of-the-line closer this offseason.
However, today I will explain why he simply hasn’t been good actually, and that he shouldn’t even be considered as an option to close in the future.
Let’s break this down.
On the year, Gsellman is 5-2 with a 4.44 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and 47 strikeouts in 38 games (48 2/3 innings pitched).
That number doesn’t look as bad if you take away what he has done in his last six appearances in which he has allowed 13 runs (11 earned) and three home runs in 6 2/3 innings pitched on his way to a 14.85 ERA in that span.
Okay, from that most would think that is just a rough stretch.
Now let’s go back to the month of April for a second. He finished the month with a superb 3-0 record, 2.03 ERA, and 15 strikeouts in 11 appearances (13 1/3 innings) to that point.
Since his first appearance in May, which occurred on the second day of the month, the right-hander has a 5.61 ERA, which is pretty alarming and he has progressively been getting worse too.
In May, his ERA was 4.58, which while not good, could still qualify him as being deserving of a bullpen spot as a first-time reliever this season.
However, it get’s worse from there. In June he finished the month with a 6.59 ERA and then he has started off the month of July with an eye-sore 27.00 ERA.
Obviously, things could change and this could all be the signs of a starting taking more time to transition into a reliever. The fact right now is, though, he isn’t that good of a reliever.
